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Welcome to my blog

I hope you enjoy reading my posts, and please leave me a comment. I always enjoy reading them, and will try to visit you in return.

You are welcome to copy any of my designs, as long as you do not take credit for them yourself. I am very happy for you to sell them. If I have used anyone else's design, I always try to give credit where it is due. If I have missed anything, please let me know and I will put things right.

This is intended to be mainly about my crafting stories, as a personal record of what I do. However, I interpret crafting quite widely, not just paper crafting but other things too. I have a butterfly mind and like to change from one thing to another depending on what I feel like on a given day - knitting, crochet, cross-stitch, cards, baking and several others.

Saturday, 28 February 2015

There is nothing like a bit of serious pressure to concentrate the mind.

This month's challenge from Clarity Stamps had the theme of "Floral". Easy, peasy, you are saying. I can hear you. I wanted to go down a different route, and have really tried hard not to look at any of the other entries for this month, to avoid any influence from other talented crafters who were more organised than I.

I have done quite a lot of parchment work in the past but not really since last summer. It is a craft I take away with me as it is a "clean" craft, with no risk of spilling ink etc onto someone else's precious fabrics.

After a lot of cogitation and turning at night, I woke up a week ago with the germ of the idea, but not really sure how it would work. I wanted to use the Chrysanthemum stencil and use embossing techniques. I tried tracing through the stencil but that was not practical as the pencil would not fit into the tighter areas, so I tried brushing through with Wild Honey and Aged Mahoghany to give me the guide.

I embossed from behind to push the colour forward into prominence, then pricked and snipped round it to remove it from the rest of the parchment.

I decided not to make it into a card but to mount it onto one of the Clarity canvas boards. I masked off the edges of the board then brushed through with Cracked Pistachio and Wild Honey to give a strong background, but still leaving a clean white border.

Once the inks were dry, I brushed a layer of Mod Podge all over to seal it and to avoid too many finger marks.

I used parchment glue to mount it, leaving the petal edges free to throw shadows. Now all I have to do is to do the entry bit and I can get on with another of the projects I have been procrastinating about, not to mention a few birthday cards that are overdue.

About Me

My name is Margaret, and I was happily married to Geoff for over 43 years, until his devastatingly sudden death at the beginning of April, 2013. Both our children are now married and have given us lovely grandchildren to play with. After years of having nutty Burmese cats, I now have two even nuttier working cocker spaniels to keep me busy and amused.
I only got started on card making in about 2006. My craft room has now become a craft house, like many others of you out there. Crafting is so addictive but great fun.